


Echoes of the Ages

by Anonymous



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Napoleonic Wars, American Civil War, Cold War, Experimental Style, F/M, Historical, History, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Napoleonic Wars, One Shot Collection, for starters, hell of a lot of other pairings probably, other periods incoming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 04:59:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11284203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: From the fields of Waterloo at the twilight of Napoleon's reign to the swelter of the American Southland in the aftermath of the Confederacy's defeat, to Europe behind a curtain of Iron, to a quiet little town called Riverdale, some souls are destined for union.--A series of one shots depicting various pairings in various historical eras.





	Echoes of the Ages

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of a two-part experiment I'm doing. Both trying to refresh my memory on certain historical periods I've not studied in a while, and trying to see if I can transplant modern characters into a different era with any rate of success. 
> 
> So there will be a different pairing and a different time period for each chapter (though I'll probably end up revisiting some). No idea how long or short this'll turn out to be. But it'll probably be rather sporadic. 
> 
> Anyway:
> 
> \--
> 
> Context for chapter 1:
> 
> Everyone knows the Battle of Waterloo. In 1815, the quarter-century long French Revolutionary wars finally came to a close with the last stand of the Emperor Napoleon against the combined forces of a European coalition. For the past several decades, France had been waging a war with the great powers of Europe, of modernity and revolution against tradition and monarchy . She was opposed primarily by the implacable British Empire, who funded an ever-shifting alliance of European states united by common hatred of Revolutionary france. At Waterloo, Napoleon, who had recently against all odds regained control of France after his first defeat a year earlier, intended to knock the Allies from the war with a lightning swift attack and sue for peace. He was opposed by an army composed of Belgians, Dutch, Germans, and of course, British. The French defeat at Waterloo there would mean the suppression of revolutionary ideology on the continent for the next several decades, and the establishment of a pan-European order that would endure until the outbreak of the First World War a century or so later. 
> 
> Here, we find our first two lovers.

 “Hey, Betts, you ever been to Belgium?” Jughead asks, one day, in a booth at Pop’s.

 “What?”

 “Uh…no….you?”

 “I don’t think so…but uh…maybe?”

 “Juggy?” Betty asks. "What do you mean?"

 Jughead looks out the window, where the rain pours down in sheets, drenching the streets of Riverdale.

 “Muddy days…rain…and for some reason strained muscles...makes me think of Belgium. Not to mention awful rations. I don’t know”

 She raises an eyebrow.

 “Rations?”

 “Food, I mean.”

* * *

**_1815_ **

 

 Jughead hates red. It’s too bright. Too cheery. Much too cheery, both for him and for the job he does. The others joke the high command has the rank-and-file’s coatsdyed a deep scarlet so the blood will blend in, and they won’t notice they’ve been hit. It’s almost believable. The officers are just dumb enough to think their men are just dumb enough to fall for it. There’s always a macabre humor to be found in war.

 He digs his teeth into a strip of tough, leathery meat, struggling mightily to tear away a chunk. It’s like eating a damn shoe. Overcast morning in Belgium. It’s summer, but the rain is hard and cold and it feels like fall already. The grey clouds roll in from the North Sea, a dark phalanx smothering the sky and promising storm. The paltry ration of beef in his hand gets soaked. He’s eaten worse. But he’s also eaten better. Much better God, he’d kill for a bite of the cheese and beef put out by the Cooper family’s farm. Of course, he’ll kill anyway, because he’s a rifleman. So he won’t think about it. And that’s the reason he won’t think about it. Certainly it won’t be because it reminds him of Betty, and that being reminded of Betty is the surest way to transform him into a helpless wreck of absolutely no use to the glorious army of king and country.

  _Another day in the service of our glorious sovereign._

Because the men in charge are, as usual, idiots, the Coalition Army is encamped in the middle of a veritable swamp, just where the Channel bleeds into Belgian farmland, creating a great field of mud stretching as far as the eye can see. Of course, in the service of king, comfort is a rarity anyway. Around him, Jughead sees men lying on their backs in the muck, letting the rain fall upon their faces. Men reclining against sleeping (dead?) horses. Men reclining against each other. They make do with what they can. The miserable storming almost makes them long for battle to be joined again. Well, not ‘almost’.

 Jughead releases a grumble of his own, and begins to write. At least he can do that. Illiteracy is tragically common in the ranks.

  _There are plenty of lovely, flowery words to describe war. Glorious. Horrendous. Heroic. Nightmarish. The truth is mud. And bad food. On occasion, lashings. And lies. Lies upon lies upon lies upon lies. ‘Hurra, lads! Boney’s escaped his island! We’ve to beat him once more for…for…king and country? British liberty? Order? Peace?’ They don’t tell us ‘we’ve got to fight because the Lords in Parliament don’t much like Bonaparte’ or ‘because we can’t well extend our markets onto the continent with the French in the way’. Of course, it doesn’t really matter, because every man fights for himself in the end, anyway. Or for something dear to himself. He fights for prestige and position, hoping someday that he’ll be the one commanding the columns. He fights because he’s got nothing to die, and a part of him that he denies would rather die a glorious death in some foreign land rather than lonely and cold in the same town he’s lived in all of his life. Or he fights, because back home there’s a life he wants to build with a girl with golden hair, and fate has left him no ot-_

“Hey, Jug.”

 “Archie.”

 Sergeant Andrews, fellow son of Riverdale, sits down alongside his comrade and friend. Jughead closes the journal. He’s probably not going to be doing much writing, looks like.

 “Ready to head back into the fire on Monday?”

 Jughead smiles a crooked smile. His signature, matter of fact.

“Monday? Nah, Archie. Tomorrow.”

 Archie’s eyebrows furrow. The corners of his mouth fall.

 “We’re not supposed to meet the French unti-“

 “Come on. Haven’t you figured it out yet? Subtract a day from what they tell us. Every time. Anyway” Jughead takes another bite of his inedible meat ration. He rolls it around with his tongue, not daring to try and swallow until it’s sufficiently softened. “I hear Napoleon’s got 24 hours’ march on us.”

 “Tomorrow?” Archie runs his hands through his ginger hair. “Ah…that’s…”

 “Hey does being shot hurt?”

 “Seriously, Jug?”

 Jughead puts up his hands in mock defense.

“I’m just asking. That time in Spain with th-“

 “ _Yes_ , Jughead, I remember being _shot_ , you don’t have to remind me. And _yes,_ it hurt like hell.”

 Jughead chuckles. A year or two ago there might have been an undercurrent of fear in his laugh. Not today. He’s long past nervousness or apprehension at this point. Just another day serving Britain under arms.

 “Well, maybe I’ll get to find out tomorrow.”

 Archie scowls and squirms, uncomfortable.

“Jughead, don’t joke about that. It isn’t funny.”

 “We’re _soldiers_ Arch, death is about the only good joke we’ve got left.” Jughead waits for his friend to respond, but Archie does not offer any response to his grim little quip. In fact, he tacks towards something entirely different. And Jughead is both glad and distressed that he does.

 “How do you think everything is back home, Jug?”

 Jughead falls silent for a moment. That’s not unusual for him. The depth and length of this silence is. Archie on the verge of apologizing for the question when Jughead finally speaks.

 “I’ll try to paint you a picture. Miss Lodge is down at the market haggling with Mr. Tate over the price of milk. Of course, he won’t dare remind her that she’ll be able to afford it no matter the price, partly because he doesn’t want to upset the Lodges, and partly because we all know he enjoys arguing with her.” Jughead pauses to see how the story affects his friend. When he sees a misty smile begin to bloom on Archie’s face, he goes on. “Your father is probably laying bricks as we speak. And of course, he’s dying for lunch. Mistress Blossom is, I’m sure, pining for her dear brother. Of course, we’re the ones who actually have to _contend_ with him.” Archie chuckles. Indeed, they’ve been saddled with the illustrious Jason Blossom for a commander. Having recently attained the rank of Captain (thanks in no small part to the influence of his father, a prominent name in the House of Lords), he’s taken to subjecting his men to an ungodly amount of haranguing, drills, and abuse both physical and mental. “Kevin Keller is down at the pub with that Spaniard fellow. No doubt they’re both in their drink and happy to be so. Reginald is trying, and probably failing, to cement his status as Riverdale’s answer to Casanova. Betty…”

 His voice trails off. He is suddenly quiet. He blinks, rapidly. If tears come, he’ll curse them. Archie sees his friend’s misery as only he can, and he takes up the slack.

 “Miss Elizabeth is either helping set the typeface down at the printer’s, or out for a stroll in the country with Miss Lodge. Either way, she’s having a pleasant afternoon. She’ll go home tonight, sup, and continue reading the copy of _Don Quixote_ you gave her. Before she goes to bed, she’ll offer a prayer for your safe return. And it will be answered.”

 The tears now stream down Jughead’s cheeks, though he tries his damned hardest to contain them. He sets his jaw, furious at what he perceives as his own weakness.

 “Thank you, Archie.”

* * *

 

 As usual, Jughead is right. As usual, the command of the Coalition’s armies have lied to their men. And just as Jughead predicted, the British regulars are thrown into action the very next day.

 June 18th, 1815.

 Some hours earlier, a British and German force had temporarily stalled Marshal Ney’s advance guard at a crossroads called Quartre-Bras. Of course, the military steamroller that was the French Grand Army could only be delayed, not halted. And soon, the coalition troops fell back, and Napoleon’s troops continued northwards, unabated. Duke Wellington finally chose to deploy the bulk of his forces on a ridge, just a few miles north of the crossroads. The valley there had no name, but the town nearby did, and though that town was an unknown backwater on that day, it was that town that would lend its name to history.

 Waterloo.

 Jughead shoulders his musket. Archie’s not there, he’s posted further down the line. The two men at Jughead’s shoulders are unknown. Strangers. He’s alone. And that’s okay. He’s used to that. On the opposite end of the field, the French army takes its positions, their blue coats and fluttering tricolor flags transforming the dull, muggy countryside into a vibrant panorama. The rain has since stopped, and the dark clouds finally flee in favor of a brilliant summer sun. But the heat isn’t baking the mud near fast enough, and its hell on the boots of the soldiers and the wheels of artillery alike.

 He tears his eyes away and brings them up to the sun in the sky. It smiles down, happy and cheerful and absolutely indifferent. Lovely day to die. Lovely day to, at least, be swallowed by the darkness that’s dogged him all the days of his life.

 Jughead tries to imagine, best that he can, that he’s on a different sunlit field. A field miles and miles away from her. In a little town in North England called Riverdale. Underneath an ancient, bowed oak tree. And Betty Cooper is leaning her head into his shoulder and he’s running his hands through her silky, golden hair. It’s not real. But it’s real enough to him. And it’s better than what’s _really_ real, anyway.

 The first fusillade of cannon slams into the ranks with hideous speed and unbearable sound. Men are crushed into paste, their limbs and heads torn away, their blood spilled to water the Belgian fields. Jughead winces. He can never acclimate himself to the first roar of artillery in the battle. Never. He focuses. The musket on his shoulder. The French soldiers spread out before him. The meager, worthless, awful pay he’ll receive if he lives.

  _God…_

The French fusiliers advance. The drummers at their flanks beat their instruments, heady with the anticipation of battle. The roar of cannon and the crack of rifle fire consume everything.

_“Vive l’Empereur!”_

Captain Blossom raises a saber, and stabs it through the air towards the French opposing. Jughead shoulders his musket, in tandem with the men all along the line. He stares down the sights, watching his musket glimmer in the sun. The boy alongside him struggles to hold his firearm firm. This really isn’t the time to smile, but Jughead does, anyway.

“Ready!” Blossom roars. “ ** _Fire!_ ”**

All along the line, smoke and fire blast forth from the muskets, whipping through the air and smashing into the wall of blue coats opposed. Jughead watches French troopers fall. He doesn’t know whom he hit. No one ever does. Whatever.

  _It’s like toy soldiers. Every man likes to think he’s an individual, a protagonist, but of course, none of us really are. We move, walk, march, array, and shoot like they tell us to. We die like it, too. Somebody’ll care, but history won’t._

And then he’s not thinking, and he realizes he’s really done himself in this time. Because Napoleon has massed his storied 12-pound guns on the hill opposite, and now there’s a hail of cannon balls screaming through the air towards them and order and discipline and toy soldiers are forgotten and everyone’s an individual again, and everyone scatters and then everything’s gone.

 

* * *

 

 “Is it finished?”

 Jughead smiles. And it isn’t one of his dark, semi-sadistic little smiles. It’s a real, wide, genuine one. Betty can’t help but beam when she sees it.

 “Almost. A few more days, at most.”

 “That’s fantastic! Amazing!” Betty throws her arms around his neck, and plants a soft kiss on his lips. He grins and gently peels her away.

 “Yeah, yeah. Settle down.”

 “Juggy, you’ve been working on this book for almost two years. You _ought_ to be excited. _I’m_ more excited than you.”

 Jughead smiles again, though this time it’s a bit more wistful, a little sad.

 “Well…it’s not that I expect to actually get it published or anything. I can aim, but I’m a realist.”

 Betty’s bright smile falls away and turns into a frown, and Jughead feels a pang of guilt for robbing her of it.

 “I don’t know why you have to be so constantly grim. I’ve read it. Archibald’s read it. Even Miss Lodge has read it. You’re a _good_ writer Forsythe Jones.” She can’t help but notice that he doesn’t even bother to correct her on her use of his Christian name. It’s the little minutiae that truly betray Jughead’s disposition, not the dour mask he wears to frighten off strangers.

 “Well, you run the local press, don’t you? Maybe we could serialize it there, hmm?” He teases.

 Betty crosses her arms in mock indignation.

 “ _That_ would be favoritism, my dear. And that simply wouldn’t do. I have to uphold a certain standard of integrity.”

 “But I thought it was _good_. You’d be including it based on its own merits, not on the fact that I wrote it.” He pauses for a moment, smiling mischievously. “Unless of course, you _don’t_ actually think it’s very good…”

 “Hey, hey. Reign yourself in. I’ll give it a bit of thought, hmm? But…anyway, I think we need to discuss a more…pressing matter.”

 Jughead moves closer to her.

 “And what’s that?”

 She grabs him by the collar and pulls him into a soft, tender kiss. Betty knocks his pseudo-crown of a cap from his head and tangles her hands in his dark hair. He responds by sliding his hands around her waist and deepening the kiss. Jughead pulls her closer, close enough that he can feel her heart beating against his. He feverishly turns to the laces of her skirts, undoing them with all of the dexterity and speed he can muster in his current state.

 He breaks the kiss just long enough to say: “This isn’t a proper topic of conversation.”

 “No” she smiles. “But our wedding is, isn’t it?”

 Jughead tries to dispel the red in his cheeks by sheer force of will. Naturally, it doesn’t work at all.

 “Oh, my. Well that is, a discussion topic. I’ll grant you that. _But_ …” He cups her face and pushes a strand of hair from her great, cornflower blue eyes. Another powerful kiss follows, which he regrets more than anything must end. “I’m not so sure I’m in the mood for discussion right just now, after all.”

 Then, he takes her again. And there is only she, and him. And on this beautiful field in the late day sun, there is nothing cruel or harsh or dark. Betty is with him, in his arms, in fact, and he is the luckiest lad in all of Britain. No, the world. Sometimes he feels almost guilty, because the son of an itinerant laborer and once-and-again soldier really doesn’t deserve anyone as perfect as Elizabeth Cooper, but then she wraps herself around him and the guilt vanishes and there’s no room for anything other than perfection here.

* * *

 

 The rider comes with dust at his heels, face grim and stony. He dismounts and strikes the ground hard. Jughead assumes at first that he is just another of townsman come to see Mr. Cooper for some reason or another. Probably a complaint about some depiction in the local press. That’s common enough. But then he notes the soldier’s military dress, and the look of fatality in his eyes, and there is a sudden, dreadful fear in his stomach that the man is here for him.

 Betty rushes out of the house to meet the new arrival, hailing him with her well-remembered greeting: “Welcome to the Cooper house! Are you here for my father?” But the script is thrown off, because the man’s response is a rarity. “No, indeed, miss.” Betty looks taken aback. There is never an answer other than ‘yes’ to that question. “My name is Captain James Lowe of His Majesty’s Navy. I am here because I was told here I might find a certain Forsythe Pendleton Jones…III.” He finishes.

 “Oh” Betty begins. “He-“

 Jughead emerges from the house behind her, face drawn.

 “That would be me.”

 The Admiral bows his head respectfully towards the young man. Jughead says nothing. He figured it out a long time ago. Since before this man came. Since he was a boy. Because it would always be this way. It was to be.

 “Young Jones…I must very regretfully inform you that your father, Sergeant Forsythe Pendleton Jones II perished in battle off the coast of Naples just this last month. You must know that he died with honor in the service of his country and his sovereign, and that Britain will not forget him.”

 And that’s it. Jughead betrays no emotion. Betty appears more than distraught than him. He nods at each of the captain’s sentences. Lowe offers a few more words of condolence and turns to leave. And that’s all. Only words. Nothing more.

* * *

  “My father’s pension is gone. I don’t have anything without it.”

 “But…” Betty begins, voice soft.

 They sit alone in the kitchen of her family’s modest, though pleasant home. A bright sun streams in through the window. The singing of birds in the trees tears at the ears of Jughead Jones. Nature’s refusal to recognize his plight is infuriating. Unbearable.

“ _I don’t have anything without it._ I don’t make nearly enough on my own. Not nearly enough.”

 “You…you can work with my family. At the press.” Betty offers, voice meek.

 “I’m not going to live off of your family’s charity, Betty. I’m not going to do that to you.”

 “It’s not charity. Jughead, I love you.” She tries to sit next to him. Tries to hug him. Tries to convince and console him. If only he’d let her. He pulls away, as if stung. “It’ll be okay, it-“

 “I’ll list with the army.” He says suddenly.

 Betty opens her mouth to speak and only gives silence. Her eyes shimmer in the light and her skin is the color of light cream and she looks so painfully beautiful.

“What? So you can die like your father.”

 “No…so that I can _support_ you!” He snaps. Betty steps back, hurt. Jughead buries his face in his hands, hating that his father is dead, hating that no one in this godforsaken town will hire the son of notorious miscreant FP Jones, hating that he is too proud to accept Betty’s grace, hating that it’s come to this, and hating that he always knew it would, because why would God allow him even a shred of joy to himself? “If I’m to marry you, I can’t live on your father’s money. You deserve better than that. And you know you do.”

 “I don’t care what I deserve! I want you! _Here! Alive!”_

“The army’s pay isn’t terrible. It’ll be enough. And when I come ba-“

 “ _If_ you come back! For God’s sake, there’s a war going on! The French have marched into Spain! Britain is fighting them there, you _know_ that as well as I do!”

 Something in him stirs. It’s a sense of conviction, and it revives the dark, sardonic spirit of wit that’s fallen dormant for the past few days.

 “We’ve been at war with the French for over twenty years. How much longer can it last?”

 He leaves Riverdale on a chilly autumn afternoon, when the trees bend and cry and spill their shriveled leaves across the ground. The British army calls its recruits to muster, because the French have been put onto the defensive in Spain. ‘One more great push!’ the recruiters thunder ‘and Napoleon’s empire of wickedness will fall!’ Of course, it’s the same cry that’s been heard across the land since 1792, when the war against the French claimed its first victims.

 Jughead isn’t old enough to remember that. Neither is Betty, or Archie, or Veronica, or any of them. They’ve only ever known a world at war. A Britain presenting an implacable brake on the schemes of the French Republic under Napoleon. They’ve grown up with Bonaparte as a bogeyman, looming across the narrow Channel, an affront to everything that is good and righteous and _English_.

 But Jughead’s father was old enough. And he was cynical enough, too.

  _“Jughead. Come here.” He’d slurred, on one of the rare days he was given leave and he returned home to lick his wounds and wash out the blood of fallen comrades with torrents of gin. Jughead stepped closer to the father he barely knew, cautious, tentative._

_“Yes, father?”_

_“You want to know why I fight the French? Why I haven’t gotten to see you grow up? Why? Are you curious?”_

 _Jughead wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to incur his father’s wrath. And yet, he_ was _curious. Curious as to why he was only boy in town without a father. Why he had to depend on the kindness of friends and strangers alike, save for the few gold coins that come from abroad once a month._

_“Why?”_

_“Because.” His father laughs. And he digs into his pocket and extracts a tiny little leather pouch. He shakes it, and Jughead hears the shillings jingling inside. “They pay me.”_

Jughead doesn’t say anything. Betty rests a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes are still rimmed red, though the tears have stopped, thank God.

 “Betty…”

 “I’m not…I’m not going to say anything more. I’m not going to try to convince you of anything.” She tugs on the lapel of his regulation red coat. “Because it’s too late for that. I just want to ask you if you’re doing this for me, to be with me, or for something else?”

 He pauses for a moment. There’s a movement at his back, like something awful and ethereal dragging him away though he doesn’t want to go. Finally, he speaks.

 “I’m doing this…for me.” She looks shocked. Her hand falls from his shoulder. He hopes to God he won’t have to see any fresh tears. “Because…” he finishes. “I want to come back here and be with you. But you don’t need that. You don’t need me. I need you.”

 And then there is the roar of artillery and the thunder of soldiers’ boots and the war rises to devour everything. Betty kisses him once more and then she reaches out her hand for the boy she’s loved for not nearly long enough. But he is already marching away.

* * *

 Jughead awakens-or maybe he doesn’t-to the dingy, grey canvas of the surgeon’s tent and to a hideous, screaming pain. In all directions, left and right and west and east and up and down and _everywhere_ lie men in various states of mutilations. Their flesh torn, eyesight taken, faces scorched, souls tattered. They scream and beg and pray. For what? Mercy, help, pity, _death_. There aren’t enough doctors or enough gods in all the world to tend to this hideous charnel house. Jughead closes his eyes and he realizes he’s going to die. And why shouldn’t he? This is life. This is reality. Life is not one of his books. Happy endings are not guaranteed. Life is random and chaotic and _cruel_ and this is how it was always going to end.

 “ _Betty…_ Archie…I…some….”

 He doesn’t know where the surgeon is. The medic’s tent isn’t a place of healing, anyway. It’s a place to hide away the refuse of war. To allow them to moulder and expire away from the eyes of the soldiers still in commission. Because of course, that would be bad for morale.

 He opens his eyes again and _she’s_ there, only she isn’t. It’s not real, but it’s so much more vivid and so much lovelier than any reality and Jughead finds that he’s okay with that.

 “Juggy…”

 He wants to reach a hand up to touch her face but the pain rips through his ragged body and he cannot.

 “Betty…am I dead? Is this Hell?”

 She laughs, and he drinks in the beauty of her blue eyes and the divinity of her golden hair.

 “Oh Juggy…it’s just like you to assume that, isn’t it? You little ghoul.”

 He laughs and _oh god_ it hurts and his stomach feels like it’s spilling out of him and he doesn’t want to look down to see what’s been done to him but she’s here and it’s okay.

 “You’re not really here, you know.” He tells Betty, his voice thick with blood and tears.

 “Maybe. But I don’t think it really matter in a way.” She brushes away his dark hair, matted with sweat and gore. “Cause in the way that matters I _am_ here.” He smiles. “I was just thinking….remember that time you and Archie were playing soldiers by the Sweet Water River and you fell and struck your head on that tree? And Archie had to carry you home and tell us that his comrade had fallen? And I had to sit their applying a wet cloth to your head like a nurse?”

 “It hurt worse than this…Betty I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I’m not coming back. I wanted to. God, you have to believe me. I wanted to so bad.”

 She bites her lip, struggling to hold back her own tears, and he cannot imagine that this is a mere trick of mind. It’s too wonderful.

 “It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. Don’t let it hurt so bad. If you’re not coming back, then I’ll be right here with you, instead.”

 Betty leans down to kiss him with the lips he’s missed more than anything, and it’s her, not the darkness that finally takes him.

 

* * *

 

 But then he opens his eyes again and he’s not in heaven or hell or anywhere that isn’t here, still in the surgeon’s tent. And men are still screaming and moaning, but the roar of artillery and musket fire is gone. And Betty’s gone, too. Standing over him instead is Archibald Andrews, who despite the drying blood splattered across his face and chest, wears a great smile. Archie takes Jughead’s hand and squeezes it.

 “You alive, pal?”

 Jughead coughs.

 “I…what?”

 “Hey…you made it. Half the men around you died. The surgeon says you’ll keep your leg. Shrapnel can do a lot worse than it did to you. We’ve seen it.”

 “I’m…I’m supposed to be dead. I saw…”

 “You saw nothing. You’re alive. And we _won_.”

 Jughead leans his head back onto the hard, stiff wooden board that passes for a stretcher. He laughs.

 The next few days pass like a whirlwind. Napoleon’s armies pull back into France. The indefatigable Emperor is ready to fight until the end, but his people are not. Under pressure from his council of state and his own brother, he signs his second and final abdication. The wars, twenty-five long years of them, are at least over. And Jughead Jones and Archibald Andrews are permitted to go home at least. Back across the stormy English Channel and over the rolling hills of Britain to a silent, insignificant little town called Riverdale.

 And when he finally limps up to the gates of the Cooper house, the pain in his leg vanishes as soon as Betty rushes out and he gathers her in his arms again. She smothers him with kisses and he makes no effort to pull away or tease or act the part of the brooding shadow. And it’s so much better than the brightest of self-created phantoms or the most wonderful of dreams.

 “I told you I’d come back.”

 She rests her head against his shoulder.

 “You did.”

 “I’ll _always_ come back. No matter how far I go, or for how long. I’ll _always_ find you.”

 And they smile. Because life isn’t a storybook. And happiness is far from guaranteed. And life is chaotic and cruel and unfair. But chaos, by its very nature, must on occasion produce happy endings, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Historical inaccuracy abounds, but nevertheless, one down!
> 
> Also I'm open to suggestions.


End file.
